We Have Some Theories About That ‘Batman V Superman’ Clip That Debuted Last Night

If you were watching Gotham last night, you saw a pretty awesome, if one-sided, fight between the main cast and a bunch of monks. You also saw the above clip from Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, which debuted exclusively on Gotham ahead of a new trailer arriving on Jimmy Kimmel Live tomorrow. And we’ve got a few theories about what’s going on in the above bit.

First things first: That’s most likely not Superman. Keep in mind that a previous trailer featured Luthor taking delivery of one very dead General Zod. It also contained a weird moment where Superman kneels before Luthor, who then waves his hand over the Supernoggin. In the comics, Luthor has a long, long history of attempting to clone his self-declared greatest nemesis. Of course, it never goes well, sometimes yielding a chalky, backwards-talking brute called Bizarro. Also, since when does Superman have a desert torture chamber and an army? How would he even fund a heavily armed squad of troops with his symbol on their arms, his Daily Planet expense account?

Another possibility, of course, is that Superman isn’t in his right mind. Another tried-and-true story device involves Luthor manipulating Superman’s mind. It’s a little cheesy, but this whole movie, underneath its gritty exterior, appears to be heavily inspired by Silver Age comics, in which such plot devices were common, so we won’t rule anything out.

This does, however, raise a few questions, not the least of which is what’s going to happen now that Luthor, and possibly Superman, know Batman’s secret identity. While that does eliminate one of the more glaring questions from the comics — namely why Superman doesn’t know who Batman is right away — one assumes it will have far-reaching consequences for the rest of the film. Now if we could just figure out if Michael Shannon is in the movie…

To be fair, Batman had his own cult hanging there too. Maybe they’re BOTH drunks?!

Supes was fermenting all his boose in Kryptonite barrels, so that he could go on a serious bender after Lois dumed him.

But Batman stole all his special sauce and even consumed some of it on a goof. Krypto-boose is a super anti-depressant for humans. Bats was actually happy his parents died (cause parents just don’t understand).

That’s why Supes is so cheesed off. Bats drank all his premium stuff. But Bats don’t care, he just wants to not feel the pain of Jason’s death, Bane breaking his back, etc. It’s kinda sad if ya think about it.

My theory is this is a fever dream or paranoid fantasy from Bats about what Superman *could* become and why he has to be stopped. An alien with God-like powers could do anything he wants, this is Bruce Wayne assuming the worst. I don’t know why Synder would put so much mileage into what essentially amounts to a dream sequence though. He did the same in MoS when Superman was drowning in the skulls.

The one thing I noticed last night was that the “S” logo looked almost golden yellow compared to the suit in Man of Steel. Not saying it’s an issue, but maybe that’s how we tell good guy Supes from bad guy Supes.

@Dan Seitz I’m sticking with the dream theory because I’m getting the vibe that Snyder is going full-blown psycho with Bruce Wayne. He’s become sort of delusional and projects these wild theories in order to justify his crusade.

It’s one of those krypton dream jawns like when we all speculated why superman was drowning in skulls in the MOS trailer. I appreciate the reverse Jesus roles as batman at least visually has the two other petty criminals bound behind him while superman is now an executioner/pontious type.

I would bet a good chunk of change on “dream sequence.” But to answer the question of “where would Superman get the funding for an army,” I think the obvious answer, straight from the source material, is that he works for the US government. Which could be interesting, I guess.

I spent like 5 minutes typing up a post about Scarecrow and his fear gas and how that could lead to nightmares such as this…I even included the so called antidote from Batman Begins… and then I realized how sad and terrible my life has become so I just posted this pathetic admission of my sad shell of a life instead.

I’d say it’s either a dream sequence, or Lex has either influenced or mind-controlled Superman into leading some sort of army and Batman was on a rescue mission to try and free Superman.

I think the reason its probably a dream sequence is because people bow to Superman. No one would do that unless Superman made them, and he would only make them do that if he were some sort of tyrannical ruler. If he were a tyrant, then I doubt Lex, or anyone else would be pulling strings.

I think it may be a different type of dream sequence, perhaps its Wonder Woman’s dream, or maybe she is using some sort of oracle, but she’s imaging a world where Superman is a supreme ruler and Batman is a freedom fighter, much like in Red Son. In any case, I do not feel like this scene would fit in the story as it would require too much time to take place for Superman to build an army and underground prison, and it would take way too much time to come back from that.